next week my newe therapist says we can try to devote the next session to trying to remember what happened. I know i shouldnt rush it, but this shit has just got to stop. I want to get to sleep before midnight, i want to be able to try and draw for five minutes at a time without freaking out and giving up. And i need to remember, so i can have control over my life. Life is so damn short, i have so many things i want to learn and see and do, but if i cant get started what can i do?

I want to look for a charity to work for, but i have been too tired. Im in a funk i guess, but ill get out of it. Trying to do things with the weight of whatever im carrying around is so frustrating, imagine trying to carry a heavy safe on your back and go through your whole day like that. Sometimes, its like that literally, when i know i have the dexterity to do some simple thing, but the strain of the weight is too heavy and i slip under it, then i drop my cup, spill my change, skew the line im drawing.

Its going to come anyways, because my head feals like a balloon thats going to pop. Headaches, body pains, sleepless nights, fear to go to bed, these arent going away until i find somee way to deal with it.

At least i identified another trigger, even though i forgot to mention it to my therapist. Whenever my mom calls, i dont know what to do, so i just let her talk and say uh huh, yeah, okay. But i know that she abused me once, even if people dont take it seriously, i do, and being sodomized by my brother i think qualifies me for a sense of perspective on the whole thing. And im positive something else happened, and almost sure she had something to do with it.

So i sit there and listen to her ramble on about stupid things, and my mind just blanks. Everything but this little voice in my head that just wants to scream until my voice is raw and my throat is bloody. But i dont know how to let myself do that. That scream is the thing that follows me through the day and into my nightmares.

I would be lying if i didnt admit that i was terrified of what this memory could be. Im even more terrified to put my life in perspective, to see all the things i have lost, all the things that other people call a living hell, but that i called home.

I dont always want to think that less than a couple of years ago i was tripping on acid, trespassing through peoples properties just because they told me i couldnt, walking around at 3 in the morning so pissed off that i was looking for an exuse to try and kill someone with my bare hands. Sometimes i got so wound up at night i could almost feel myself snapping, tearing the throat out of the next asshole cop who decided to bother me for walking around alone at night. That never happened, but it sure as hell could have.

Tripping on acid made things feel like the werent real, like demons were around every corner and spirits were so real they were talking to me. I felt like god had forsaken me, that i hated god with a fierce loathing boardering on madness. I was trying to rebel against existance itself, like staying alive was trying to prove some sort of point.

I remember trying to think of selling drugs as a way out, a way to have power. I even invested a couple of times, though i never sold it myself. Sometimes i wonder if my contstant ranting about drugs and capitalism controlling everyone helped drive some of my friends to doing what they did. One of my friends is a constant pothead now, and a dealer, and i feel bad because i dont want to have anything to do with him anymore.

My memory comes and goes, but what i remember is thinking life was a lie, and i was trying to be an honest person, no matter what the cost. But now i wonder, who was i really pissed at? Was it the schools? The government? I dont really think so anymore, even if i do get angry and outraged, nothing they ever did to me personally could make me that crazy. They felt like the cherry on top. So the question i find myself asking is, "What is the missing piece of the puzzle? What is causing this pit of darkness inside me?"

I dont really know, but i do know i am not going to spend my life running from it. Thats just not who i am. No matter what happened to, no matter what i may have done (if anything), no matter what i couldnt do then, i am not gong to back down from this.

I have a couple of suggestions and a comment or two. Your posts are always on target, I hope this will help you.

First the comment. It has been my experience that the things that terrified me, including the huge hulking shadow just over my shoulder that sent me to the hosipital from fear, became a lot less scary once I had shone light on them. Turning on the light by examining that fear is daunting, terrifying, but it takes all the power out of the fear. It gives it a shape. But don't force it.

Now for my unlicensed clinical advice (which should be followed only if you are foolish enough to believe it ): 1.Take a break from your Mother. Can you avoid talking to her for a little while? Even if it means cutting down by half the number of times you see or phone her, I think ytou need some space. Screen your calls. 2. Write a letter to your mother that you never intend to send. Don't hold back. Open up on the page and let it rip. Maybe a therapist already suggested this, but I think it would be a great vent for your anger and frustration, which, by the way, I TOTALLY identify with.

So the question i find myself asking is, "What is the missing piece of the puzzle? What is causing this pit of darkness inside me?"

I dont really know, but i do know i am not going to spend my life running from it. Thats just not who i am. No matter what happened to, no matter what i may have done (if anything), no matter what i couldnt do then, i am not gong to back down from this.

That's a lesson for us all Broken, even if the answer doesn't come, why the fuck should we run away ?Stand your ground, no surrender.Lloydy

_________________________
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.Henry David Thoreau

Not sure if this would help or not, but sometimes I write my thoughts down (even if just short phrases or sentances). Sometimes when I did this, they pieced together a picture that I couldn't see when they were just attacking me individually. All of my stuff came out over many years and so at times it really freaked me out! But when the picture was almost complete, it looked much different.

I do realize this is rough as it was h*ll for me when I was going through it. I did write a poem one time and will share it here as you may identify with it.

thats a good poem. I havent called my mother since i left, she has called me three or four times, even after i told her i wanted my space. She needs me to be around in some sick way, she always wanted me to be close to her even when i didnt want to. If i hadnt left she would have never let go. But when she calls i just dont know what to do. I have been screening my calls, my grandmother sent me some money and she wants to talk now. She is such a sad woman, sometimes i think worse than my mother. I think im going to try and call her soon, and tell her this is the last gift im going to accept. Im also going to say that im not going to pretend like my familiy is just fine and everything is allright. Damn it, i am so sick of having to do this all by myself, i dont have any friends or family that support me except my brother, and since he was my abuser, i cant really let him back me up even if i want to. It just wouldnt be healthy for either of us. Damn this world, why is it that my only friends have been abused and are still living in abusive environments? Why cant i meet one cool person who can say, yeah, ive been there, but im not there anymore. Or better yet someone who is thrashing around the same way i am, trying to change things. All this effort to tell myself you dont have to be alone, just to find that its true, but im STILL alone. Its hard to meet friends and influence people when you spend half an hour awake yet still trying to open your eyes when you get up. (I wish i were joking)

I have a wicked sense of humor, probably honed as a defense mechanism, but I always want to crack a joke at inappropriate times. I will refrain, except to say, I'll wave a magic wand and make everything ok for you, if you'll do that for me?

Anyway, I haven't completely figured things out, and I am not quite thrashing about either, but I have gotten some distance between the dysfubction and myself. I think it is what you will have to do as well. The more we 'play along' with those who are going about their lives as if nothing is wrong, the more we are likely to stay unconconscious ourselves.

The struggle for me has been to move from the realm of the thinking (which I do all too frequently and excessively, to the point of exhaustion) into the realm of feeling. With me, I am staring at a wall, behind which is feeling, and I cannot find the door. your struggle seems similar. This board provides a lot of support, can you feel it?

yes i definitely feel it, it is what got me through for a long time. Sometimes i get so desperate for it i try and inspire it.

I always am afraid one day i will devolope a messiah complex like your always hearing about with these religious nuts out in the middle of nowhere raising militias. :p

i think im too obsessed with the arcane concept of doing the right thing for that to happen though, and it doesnt hurt that i have no skills, no job, and living on disablility. Humility is a natural response to understanding you are not a god.

i dont know exactely what to do when i cant find what im feeling, thats why i cant remember yet, i havent completely adapted to the reality of the abuse by my mother, because its still on shaky legs. Its kind of unfair, i rush through all these things designed to give me the power to love who i am and change into the person i want to be, and by comparison (a useless gesture) you could say im making rapid progress. But i still cant find the strength to give myself much credit, because there is still so much pain. What the hell is giving me nightmares, keeping me awake at night in fear? As i write here the only reason im up right now is because im scared to go to sleep. Where do you go when you dont know whats chasing you and there is no escape? I know im scared, but i dont know what of. Right now i just want to scream "what the hell is wrong with me?" "Why am i so scared?" I cant confront my fears if i dont know what they are.

BrokenA big part of my recovery was writing, I'm currently up to just over 70,000 words- not counting what I write here. ( you might have guessed by now that I find writing therapeutic )The stuff I write is mine, some of it my wife has read, some my therapist, but it's no secret to either of them. the reason I say it's mine is because I find it easier to express myself with words on the screen or page. I don't stammer here for a start! Writing the "Thoughts of Lloydy" I take more time to think through what I want to see before me, I choose the words and sentences more carefully to get it right. Then I save it as version 1. Sometime later I go back to it and refine it, not really change it but tidy it up and probably expand on it, version 2. Some of my early stuff is on version 5 or 6 now. But I keep ALL the versions for comparison. And it's alarming just how much I have changed in a few years. By refining my thoughts on a page I have a conversation with myself and get so much sorted out.I just wondered if you have tried this sort of thing ? What you write here is so good, you have strong thoughts and opinions and a huge passion that comes across strongly when you write. Maybe you should harness those qualities ?Just a thought Broken.Lloydy

_________________________
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.Henry David Thoreau

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